Category: Uncategorized

Gender equality doesn’t mean that everything is split equally, it just gives us the freedom to choose our own equilibrium. Granted we have biological differences but we also have different characters and personalities. If we want to be truly happy, we have to be truly honest with ourselves.

Me and my better half Ana are very different from each other. If you look at us as individuals, you’d be pressed to even pin us as friends, let alone a couple in a relationship. Yet here we are, alive and kicking. We’ve been inseparable for about 6 years now and while I do roll my eyes and facepalm on occasion (believe me, she does too, with all due right), she is the most impressive and wonderful person I have ever met and I wouldn’t do or commit to half the things I’ve done with her with anyone else.

The reason why it works is honesty, tolerance and a healthy disbelief in conventional thinking. We see what we are and how we best function as individuals and apply that as a couple. Had we followed traditional gender norms, I would be at work every day and she would be home raising Ean. What’s wrong with that? Nothing, unless you look at us as people.…

Taking a kid like Ean swimming every day is a lot of fun, drains him of energy and increases his appetite. It also takes for ever! 🤪

Here seen, pretending to be invisible while I repeatedly asked him to come get dressed. Some days are easier than others but I’ve noticed that stress is the enemy of toddlers.

The more you forcefully boss him around, the more he will resist. He doesn’t know the parking meter is expiring and we’re going to have to pay more, he’s just busy making funny faces in the mirror.

So I decided to at all costs try to avoid stress by allowing ample time for both getting dressed and playing silly games. That way I don’t need to rush and he doesn’t feel nagged and we both leave the gym with a smile.

Ana and Aida have been friends and neighbors since childhood. One day, about 3 years ago Ana contacted her to deliver the big news, that she was pregnant. It turned out, Aida was pregnant too! So they were kids together, grew up together and were pregnant together with just a few months apart and now our kids are growing up together in the same city, for now (I see you Malaga!)

Now, Ean and Chloe are pushing 3 years later this year and they are becoming good friends and quite the play team. From one generation to the next, the beautiful bond of humanity keeps twirling and expanding its branches.

They’re at that age now where they can play freely while the grownups talk (way too much and way too fast in Spanish for me to understand) and I just sit there and marvel at the beauty of human interaction, starting from such a young age and the desire to be heard, seen, understood and appreciated.

It’s easy, in this world of divisive thinking and hatred, to feel that we are fundamentally different and in many ways we grow up to be very different from each other. But, at the core, we all still just want to be heard, seen, understood and appreciated.…

Since we moved to Spain and have a more balanced division of time spent with Ean, I’ve felt like it kind of created distance between us. That raw bro vibe wasn’t as pronounced as back when we spent our days on beaches and in parks, training and doing everything together.

Well a few weeks ago I started training at a fitness club where they have a daycare and a swimming pool. So now, 5-6 days a week I go to work out, I drop Ean at the daycare and he loves it! Afterwards we go swimming together.

This has kind of recreated our old times of active play and fun, as opposed to just hang out at home playing with toys. Now, we’re back to being much closer and there’s a symbiosis that’s hard to explain but amazing to experience.

What I want to tell all fathers, especially those who don’t spend so much time with their kids because it seems like they prefer their mom, make time… quality time and really get to know your kid.

They will have memories for the rest of their life and you will reap the reward for the rest of yours as your kid becomes more than your offspring, but a friend and an actual person with their own ideas, opinions and quirky ways. It’s the difference between being a “father figure” and an actual parent. There’s nothing quite like it.

Before, Ean used to cry when his mom sent him over to me in the morning. Now he snuggles up with kisses, hugs and talks about what he wants to eat and do today. Between that and the gentle rays of the sun waking me up from over the snowy mountain tops, I am in heaven.

Every day is paradise and we walk around hugging like this all the time…

just kidding.

Raising a child is like any relationship, it demands work, compassion, compromise and a lot of love. Ultimately it’s about understanding each other and even though there are days where I feel like banging my head against the wall, most days are pure bliss and all days have at least a moment of peace and love.

When I came up with the name and tag line for Fatherologist I didn’t know what I was going to face but almost 3 years into it I am certain of one thing, your children are a reflection of you and if you see something in them you have a hard time dealing with, take a long hard look at yourself.

Parenting isn’t easy, but I see people making it harder than it needs to be by subscribing to shortcuts and lazy ways.

With kids there are no shortcuts. You have to put in the work and ultimately you reap what you sow and you get what you give, like in any relationship.…

The other day we went to the science park in Granada. Ean is at that age now where he can run around and explore things on his own, ehm… under supervision of course. Educational playing is my favorite type of playing!

The video doesn’t show nearly close to a fair overview of everything you can do there, most of the time I was busy playing with Ean and tucked the camera away. Not to mention, most of the exhibitions are too dark to film inside.

The Bio dome was an exception and gave me a chance to get some nice footage of Ean and the attractions. If you’re ever in Granada, Spain… make sure you visit Parque de las Ciencias.…

When my family escaped threat of death in Iran by the Islamic regime, my parents settled in a small town in the south of Sweden, Bankeryd. Coming from a completely different culture, taking welfare money and living passively was not an option so the first moment they could, they started their own business, buying a pizzeria.

There I watched my parents bake every day. The massive dough blender, the kneading, the moist towels and long rows of buns that would later on be spread out into pizza pies and kebab bread.

Bread is borderline religious in middle eastern culture and my home was not an exception. Knowing how to bake bread is a staple in our family and of course something I want to pass on to my son.

Yesterday was the first time he saw first hand, how bread is made, and got to be a part of it. He was so excited and giddy all throughout the process and when his mother woke up, he proudly showed her his baked bread, made from scratch and he absolutely refused to eat any other type of bread than that which he had made.

Being a parent is more than just popping out a baby and making sure he or she is clothed and fed. Being a parent can mean many different things based on many different variables, believes, routines and circumstances but what all parenting has in common is time, quality time. If you don’t spend enough one on one time with your child, I assure you, you don’t even know who they really are.

Since we moved to Spain, my “workload” with Ean has decreased a lot because of family that helps out and the fact that Ana isn’t working. For the past month I’ve been really busy with a house renovation as well so that meant unusually little quality time spent with Ean.

The time spent together was during this period more or less always with other family members but lately things have started to pan out and I’ve been able to set aside time to be alone with imh, to take a ride to a nearby park or watch the sunset in the mountains and I learned something very important.…

The plan was to move to Malaga to see what life would be like away from Malta, in a more diverse, metropolitan and well connected country, but we never made it there. We were supposed to stay in Granada with Ana’s family while looking for accommodation in Malaga but one thing lead to another, I fell in love with the tranquility in this tiny village in the mountains, Ean loved being close to his grandparents and I came up with an idea to renovate an existing space on Ana’s parents property and turn it into an apartment for us while looking for property to buy and renovate in Malaga. It made more sense to put money into renovating and expanding her parents property than to flush the money down the drain on some semi decent rental apartment owned by strangers, 1.5 hours from the grandparents.

I had no idea how Ean would react to the move from Malta but he hasn’t indicated or mentioned anything about his old daycare, friends, home or anything else. On purpose we haven’t mentioned anything from Malta to him, in fear of sparking a memory, triggering sorry, longing or confusion. Not even today when he saw an old photo of himself in our kitchen in Malta, not a single reaction, he just wanted to scroll forward to the photos from the airplane and it really surprised me. After all, it’s the only home he’s known in his short life and I assumed he would feel some kind of connection to it but no, nothing… what a relief. I felt a little guilty uprooting him like this but judging by his reactions so far, it was all in my head.…